The Charmed Life | Page 4

wanderlust. And so it happened that that red faced Britisher of a Roos-Keppel kicked me, figuratively speaking, in the stomach--and I'm grateful to him--always shall be grateful.
I met him at the jockey club. He took to me and invited me to dinner at the Hotel Semiramis, where he had a gorgeous suite of rooms. It was some little dinner--just the two of us--and you know the sort of host he is. We tried every barreled, fermented, and bottle refreshment from Syrian raki to yellow-ribbon Grand Marnier; and it was at the end of the party--I was busy with a large cup of coffee and a small glass of brandy, and he with a small cup of coffee and a large glass of brandy--that he cut loose and told me tales about India--tales in which he had been either principal or witness--and, in half an hour, he had taught me more about the hidden nooks and corners of this land than there is in all the travel books, Murray's government and missionary reports put together. What's more his tales were true.
So I asked him, like a tactless young cub: "Heavens, man, with your knowledge of India-- why did you throw your chance away? Why didn't you stick to it? You would have made a great, big, bouncing, twenty-four carat success!"
"And I would have wound up with a G. C. S. I., a bloody knighthood, a pension of ten thousand rupees a year, and a two-inch space in the obituary column of the Calcutta Times--English papers please copy--when I've kicked the bally bucket!" He guffawed, and he hiccuped a little. For he had been hitting the brandy bottle, and all the other assorted bottles, like a corn-stalk sailor on a shore spree after two dry months on a lime-juicer without making port. "Success?" he continued, "why, my lad, I am a success. A number one-- waterproof--and, damn my eyes. whisky-proof for that matter?"
"You are--what?" I asked, amazed for the man was serious, perfectly serious, mind you; and he kept right on with his philippic monologue, extravagant in diction and gesture, but the core of it--why it was serene, grotesquely serene! "I am a success, I repeat: don't you believe me?" He lowered a purple-veined eyelid in a fat, Falstaffian leer.
"Take a good look at these rooms of mine-- best rooms in the Semiramis, in Calcutta, in India, hang it all--in the whole plurry empire!" He pointed at the gorgeous furniture and the silk hangings, "Viceroys by the score have occupied them--and the Prince of Wales--and four assorted Russian grand dukes--and three bloated Yankee plutocrats. And our little supper--look at the bottles and dishes--how much do you think it'll cost? I tell you--five hundred rupees-- without the tip! And," he laughed, "I haven't even got enough of the ready to tip the black-lacquered Eurasian majordomo who uncorked our sherry and, doubtless, swiped the first glass."
I made an instinctive gesture toward my pocket-book, but he stopped me with another laugh. "Don't make a silly ass of yourself," he said. "I don't want to borrow any money. All I want to prove to you is that I live and I do as I please--forgetful of the yesterday, careless of the morrow--serene in my belief in my own particular fate. To-night I am broke--hopelessly, desperately broke, you'd call it. For I haven't got a rupee in the world. My bank-account is concave, I owe wages to my servants, I owe for my stable service and horse feed. Everything I have--even my old C-spring barouche, even my old, patched, green bedroom slippers are mortgaged. But what of it? I'll sleep to-night as quiet and untouched as a little babe. something is sure to happen tomorrow-- always does happen. I always kick through--somehow--"
"But--how?" I was beginning to get worried for him--I liked him.
"How? Because I am a success--a success with reverse English. The world? Why, I put it all over this fool of a world. For I believe in myself. That's why I win out. Everybody who believes in himself wins out--in what he wants to win out. You, Denton," he went on after a short pause, "are a nice lad, clean and well-bred and no end proper. But you are too damned smug--no offense meant--you are like a respectable spinster owl with respectable astigmatism. Cut away from it. See life. Make life. Take life by the tail and swing it about your head and force it to disgorge. Take a chance--say to yourself that nothing can happen to you!"
"Pretty little theory," I interrupted.
"Theory--the devil!" he cried. "It's the truth! Don't take me as an example if you don't want to. Take people who have done real things. Take you own adored George Washington--take the Duke of Wellington, take Moltke, Ghengiz Khan, U. S. Grant, Attila, Tamerlane, Joffre,